Clover is one of the most commonperennial herbaceous plants, which occurs very often, literally everywhere: in meadows, in forests, along field roads, in glades, forest edges. In the field, the plant lives no more than 2-3 years, and only white clover - up to 10 years. Because of the triple leaf shape, it is also called trefoil. This rod-root plant reaches 20 cm in height and is characterized by a strong branching of the root system, which can penetrate the soil up to 1 meter deep. It has a shortened main stalk and long creeping lateral shoots, because of which it is also called a white creeping clover.
Clover belongs to a family of legumes,subfamily - moths. The fruit of the plant is a bean with 3-4 small, heart-shaped seeds. Inflorescence - globose multifloral heads with 40-80 or more flowers. The color of the corolla is white, sometimes creamy or pinkish. White clover Not as high as red, and his headless than that of red. Accordingly, the flower tubes are shorter, which explains the presence of numerous bees over meadows with a flowering white clover: their proboscis is quite enough to get to the nectar. Fragrant honey, collected from a creeping clover, is considered one of the best.
White clover is the most unpretentious of all kindsclovers. Perfectly feels on sandy and loamy soils, weakly acidic or neutral. Moist-loving, can withstand flooding for up to 1 month, but at the same time it well resists drought. It has good winter hardiness and disease resistance. In years with enough cool and cloudy weather, with rain during the flowering period, white clover gives more shoots than in dry and hot years. It grows best in places with a humid and cool climate. Blossoms earlier than other clovers - in May, and blooms almost to the frosts. Seeds of white clover ripen already to the beginning or middle of August.
Clover has long been considered an excellent foodplant. Grass clover contains a lot of protein, protein, starch, sugars, folic acid, vitamins, including. carotene, vitamins C, P, E. On pastures and hayfields it is grown as a part of a grass mix with timothy grass or ryegrass, which increases the nutritive qualities of green fodder. In addition, this neighborhood does not allow the plant to lie (from the wind, if the crops are only from clover), it will be easier to mow, and also to harvest seeds. Attempting the white clover with livestock in pastures does not depress the plant, as in the case of red clover, on the contrary, under favorable conditions, i.e. good humidity, they do not perish, but continue to grow as separate plants, thanks to the roots in their stem nodes.
White clover is known in folk medicine asrestorative, antitoxic, analgesic, tonic and wound-healing remedy. Inflorescences and its grass are used in the form of teas or infusions for pain in the bones, when coughing, as a diuretic, with gastrointestinal diseases, dropsy, epidemic parotitis, as a diaphoretic for colds, as soothing. Water infusion from flower heads, as well as tincture from plants, is used by people for poisoning, pulmonary tuberculosis, choking, female diseases, gout, hernias. In some areas of the Caucasus, infusion of creeping clover is prescribed for the treatment and prevention of postpartum inflammatory processes in the uterus. Fresh, in the form of gruel, the leaves are used to stop bleeding with bleeding wounds, apply to abscesses, hemorrhoids, various tumors and panaritium.
Dried and shredded clover flowersuse in cooking, as a seasoning for soups, and leaves (dry) - grind into flour and add to bread. Such bread becomes a dietary product. Of the young leaves and shoots of clover, lettuce is prepared, and the flowers can be sour as cabbage.
Great popularity in recent years have becometo buy lawns from white clover. There are even special low-growing varieties, which form a dense mass of leaves, adorned with white delicate flowers and which look great on the lawns. Such lawns are longevous and, moreover, enrich the soil with nitrogen (clover's roots are capable of retaining nitrogen contained in the air and contained in the soil and thereby accumulate it).
